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Making the
discoveries
Our strategy
to defeat cancer
2016–21
Our vision
We will overcome the
challenges posed by
cancer’s complexity,
adaptability and
evolution through
scientific and clinical
excellence, innovation
and partnership.
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Our strategy to
defeat cancer
Cancer is the UK’s biggest killer. For
all the dramatic progress against the
disease in recent decades, it continues
to claim around 160,000 lives every
year. Survival rates have improved
enormously in some types of cancer,
but patients with other tumour types
continue to do very poorly, and once
the disease has spread round the body
it is still often incurable.
We now know that the main reason
cancer is so difficult to treat is that it is
enormously complex, and can adapt
and evolve as its environment changes
– and in response to treatment. Not
only are there more than 200 types of
cancer, but each is genetically diverse,
and there is variation even between the
different cells of an individual patient’s
tumour. Cancer cells do not send and
receive chemical signals through linear
pathways, but via intricate and hugely
complex webs. Patients will often
respond initially to chemotherapy or
new targeted drugs, only for the cancer
to exploit this genetic diversity and
complexity, and find a way to sidestep
the effects of treatment.
The Institute of Cancer Research,
London, and The Royal Marsden NHS
Foundation Trust together form one
of the world’s top centres for cancer
research and treatment, with a focus
on taking research findings rapidly from
the laboratory to the clinic, to improve
outcomes for patients. We have worked
together on a joint research strategy,
Making the discoveries: our strategy to
defeat cancer. The strategy covers the
next five years, until 2021. We aim to
ʽWe now know that the
main reason cancer is
so difficult to treat is
that it is enormously
complex’
accelerate progress against cancer by
combating the disease’s extraordinary
complexity, and its enduring ability
to adapt and become resistant to
treatment. We will do so through
scientific and clinical excellence,
innovation and partnership.
Professor Paul Workman
FMedSci, FRS
Chief Executive
The Institute of Cancer
Research, London
Professor David Cunningham
FRCP, FMedSci
Director of Clinical Research
The Royal Marsden and
The Institute of Cancer
Research, London
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Our research pillars
Our research strategy is structured around four central pillars designed to overcome
cancer’s complexity and evolution. These are underpinned by strong foundations.
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Unravelling
cancer’s
complexity
UNRAVELLING
CANCER'S
COMPLEXITY
INNOVATIVE
APPROACHES
SMARTER,
KINDER
TREATM ENTS
1 2 3 4
People and skills
Digital and infrastructure
Innovative
approaches
MAKING IT
COUNT
Culture and team science
Partnership
OVERCOMING
CANCER'S
COMPLEXITY
AND EVOLUTION
Smarter,
kinder
treatments
Making it
count
The first pillar of our joint research strategy is to gain a much fuller
understanding of the complexity of cancer. We need to take an overview of
cancer’s complex ecosystems and communication networks – and yet also to
drill down deep into the specific mechanisms that drive cancer development,
growth and spread. In this way we can reveal the fundamental processes
at work as cancers arise, change and evolve, and use this knowledge to
outmanoeuvre cancer by opening up exciting new avenues for treatment.
Scientific understanding on its own is not sufficient to defeat cancer – we need
to innovate at every stage from the bench to the bedside. The second pillar
of our research strategy is to discover novel and personalised approaches to
cancer treatment, controlling tumours locally where possible, while also meeting
the challenges of cancer evolution and drug resistance. We believe that drugs
that target evolutionary mechanisms, adaptive therapy, precision radiotherapy
and immunotherapy – often used together in innovative combinations – will all
have a critical part to play in achieving long-term survival and cure.
The ICR and The Royal Marsden will also work closely together to accelerate
clinical development of innovative new treatments for the benefit of patients. The
third pillar of our research strategy is to create and deliver innovative clinical
trials assessing a range of personalised treatments: novel small-molecule drugs,
biological agents including immunotherapy, precision radiotherapy, new surgical
techniques, advanced cancer imaging and combination treatment. We need to
use targeted treatment, based on accurate diagnosis, as early as possible in
disease – and then to adapt therapy to the cancer’s changing molecular and
biological profile.
Finally, we recognise that our responsibility to cancer patients does not end
with the delivery of excellent research, or even with the development of a
new treatment. We need to take active steps to ensure our findings deliver
real impact on the lives of cancer patients. So the fourth pillar of our strategy
is a commitment to make our research count in embedding new treatments,
technologies and strategies for prevention into routine healthcare, by building
an evidence base to support their adoption, leading through national and
international networks, and influencing health services. We want to ensure our
results have the greatest possible beneficial impact on the lives of people with
cancer – and people who may develop cancer in future.
Pillar 1
Unravelling cancer’s
complexity
We will comprehend the
full complexity of cancer by
harnessing the power of new
technologies and Big Data.
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Unravelling cancer's complexity
Now
ʽWe aim to take
an overarching
view across
cancer’s complexity
and evolution’
The ICR has played a pioneering
role in exposing the complexity and
adaptability of cancer. We have
driven forward understanding of how
cancer cells signal through pathways
and networks, revealed the threedimensional structures of key cancer
proteins and been world leaders in
identifying cancer genes. We have
also shown that cancers evolve and
diversify in a way that can be explained
by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution
by natural selection.
technologies and innovative types
of imaging, to provide a detailed
insight into what makes cancer tick.
Our approach will aim to take an
overarching view across cancer’s
complexity and evolution, and also to
dive down deep into the fundamental
mechanisms at work in cancer’s
development and progression.
We believe that gaining a much fuller
picture of cancer’s complexity, and its
ability to adapt and evolve, is essential
if we are to identify new, more effective
approaches to cancer treatment, and
to improve long-term survival and cure.
We intend to apply advanced new
techniques, such as computational
approaches, gene-sequencing
Read more about
cancer evolution at
www.icr.ac.uk/research
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Unravelling cancer's complexity
Future
Professor Jon Pines
The fundamentals
of cell division
In a normal cell cycle, the goal of cell division
is to accurately duplicate genetic information
and evenly divide it into two daughter cells.
Complex cellular machinery makes sure the
two daughter cells receive an identical set
of chromosomes – ensuring cells remain
genetically stable. The ICR’s Professor
Jon Pines has led research into how these
fundamental mechanisms of cell division
are regulated, helping to shed light on how
errors in chromosomal segregation can lead
to cancer.
Studying exactly how cells maintain the
stability of the genome during normal
cell division is critical to understand the
development and evolution of cancer, and to
open up new approaches to treatment. Our
scientists are also producing detailed biological
images of proteins, in unprecedented detail,
to help us discern exactly how cells copy
their chromosomes and divide. Visualising
the structures of the key proteins involved in
cancer allows us to design drugs to bind to
them and block their activity.
To enable us to decipher these complex
processes further we are investing in realtime cellular imaging. By live streaming of
digital, microscopic images of dynamic cell
division, we can understand precisely how
the machinery that controls the process is
regulated in space and time. Our researchers
will be able to pinpoint exactly what goes
wrong when cancer develops, helping us to
find new ways to defeat cancer.
e will understand in detail the
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critical mechanisms used by cells to
grow, divide and spread – including
how they copy, segregate and
repair their DNA – and how these
processes go wrong in cancer.
e will establish an overarching
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view of cancer’s complex
communication networks – so
we can identify new targets for
cancer drugs, new biomarkers
for resistance and recurrence,
and clues for how best to
combine treatments.
e will reveal how cancers adapt
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and evolve in response to changes
in their environment – including
how they evade the immune system
and develop resistance to drugs
and radiotherapy.
e will bring together analysis
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of germline and tumour genetics,
to identify markers of prognosis
or treatment response, and
new diagnostics.
We
will develop innovative new
imaging technologies designed
to assess a tumour’s behaviour
and metabolism, and to predict or
monitor the response to treatment.
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Unravelling cancer's complexity
How?
Targets
Dr Andrea Sottoriva
Anticipating cancer’s
next steps
e will recruit world-leading cell,
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molecular and structural biologists,
and invest in cutting-edge forms
of microscopy and other new
technologies to support them.
e will enhance the integration
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of all our genomics work across
germline and tumour genetics,
and spanning the ICR and The
Royal Marsden.
We
will establish new strategic
relationships with other academic
organisations in areas such as
genomic stability, cancer evolution
and immunology.
We
will develop systems biology
approaches and a new Knowledge
Hub for analysis of Big Data so we
can better understand cancer’s
complex communication networks.
e will introduce new animal
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models and studies of human
tissue from The Royal Marsden
to explore how cancers interact
with their tissue environments and
the immune system as they grow
and spread.
e will further invest in our new
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state-of-the-art building for imaging
research – the Centre for Cancer
Imaging – to ensure it is equipped
with the latest technology and drives
multidisciplinary collaboration.
We
will establish long-term
leadership for our Centre for
Evolution and Cancer, and ensure
it helps shape our future approach
to discovery of new treatments by
moving it alongside a new Centre
for Cancer Drug Discovery.
The ICR has pioneered research into cancer
evolution and its discoveries are already
informing practice on drug resistance in
advanced disease. Our new Centre for
Evolution and Cancer draws together
researchers from evolutionary biology,
ecology, bioinformatics, genomics and
clinical oncology to provide better insights
into the course of disease and find new
avenues for treatment.
We will now seek to find ways to predict the
path of disease in every person with cancer.
The ICR’s Dr Andrea Sottoriva has already
shown that mathematical rules govern some
elements of cancer evolution. He is using
vast amounts of genetic data from human
tumours to provide insights into how a given
cancer will develop over time. Meanwhile,
Dr Yinyin Yuan has shown that the course
of ovarian cancer could be predicted by
looking at how it interacts with its tissue
environment. Her research has led to the
development of an automated system that
uses biopsy samples to predict a patient’s
chance of survival.
These new approaches to anticipate
cancer’s next steps will help us design drug
regimens that are most likely to be effective,
and least likely to drive resistance to
treatment. We will co-locate our evolutionary
scientists with our drug discovery teams so
new insights into evolution can help shape
the future of cancer treatment, and help us
to prevent or overcome drug resistance.
To expand knowledge of how cancer cells develop
and cope with genome instability, and apply our
understanding to identify a new therapeutic target
or drug.
To understand the complex ways in which cancer
cells evolve and remodel their communication
networks to adapt to the effects of treatment,
and identify a new strategy for overcoming
drug resistance.
Pillar 2
Innovative
approaches
We will take on the challenge
of cancer’s complexity, evolution
and drug resistance through the
discovery of innovative new
approaches to cancer treatment.
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Innovative approaches
Now
Dr Gert Attard
An early warning of
drug resistance
‘We need to discover
new approaches to
treatment designed to
overcome resistance’
Liquid biopsies have the potential to
transform cancer treatment by providing
a cheaper, faster, less invasive way of
assessing genetic information from a
tumour than a traditional tissue biopsy.
Several research groups at the ICR and
The Royal Marsden are developing liquid
biopsy techniques that detect and sequence
DNA released by cancer cells into the
bloodstream. Dr Nicholas Turner has
developed a blood test for breast cancer that
picks up very early signs that a treatment
is no longer working, eight months before
tumours are visible on hospital scans. Dr
Gert Attard found that a similar blood test
in prostate cancer could predict in advance
whether patients were likely to develop
resistance to treatment.
The ICR discovers more new cancer
drugs than any other academic
centre in the world. Since 2005, it
has identified 20 drug candidates –
each designed to hit specific targets
important for cancer – and eight have
gone on to enter clinical trials at The
Royal Marsden and elsewhere. The
innovative drug abiraterone, also
discovered at the ICR, has become
a standard treatment for prostate
cancer and is benefiting hundreds
of thousands of men worldwide. The
ICR and The Royal Marsden have
also pioneered new forms of precision
radiotherapy, through advances in
physics research which have allowed
radiation beams to be shaped to the
contours of a tumour.
Analysing circulating tumour DNA in this
way could transform how we treat cancer
patients. We can get a genetic profile of the
cancer, non-invasively, and discover which
mutations are driving it, and how the disease
becomes resistant to treatment. We can
then use this information to adapt treatment
so we are giving patients the best drugs for
their cancer at that point in time.
We are still at the early stages in the use
of liquid biopsies. Over the next five years,
researchers at the ICR and The Royal
Marsden will devise new combinations or
sequences of drugs designed to adapt to
genetic changes within a cancer detected
by blood tests over the course of treatment.
We will select drugs to slow down cancer
evolution, making it harder for the disease to
evade the effects of treatment.
Read more about our
drug discovery research at
www.icr.ac.uk/research
But for all the progress, cancers often
remain very difficult to treat. Many
of the new generation of targeted
therapies are initially highly effective,
only for cancers to adapt and evolve
resistance to treatment. Over the
next five years, under the leadership
of Professor Raj Chopra, the ICR
will deliver a new programme of
drug discovery designed to meet this
major clinical challenge head on. We
need to discover new approaches
to treatment designed to prevent,
anticipate or overcome the evolution
of drug resistance. We will also aim to
harness the adaptability of the immune
system in new treatments capable of
outpacing cancer evolution. And we will
innovate in the delivery of radiotherapy
to patients, so we can eradicate cancer
locally before it gets the chance to
evolve and spread.
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Innovative approaches
Future
Dr James Larkin
Manipulating the
immune system
Boosting a person’s immune response
against cancer is one of the most exciting
advances in cancer therapy. The ICR and
The Royal Marsden have already played an
important role in developing immunotherapy
for patients. Dr James Larkin helped lead
a major international study demonstrating
that the combination of two immunotherapy
drugs – nivolumab and ipilimumab – could
shrink tumours in almost 60 per cent of
patients with advanced melanoma. We
also led the UK arm of a phase III trial
demonstrating the effectiveness of a viral
immunotherapy called T-VEC. It was the
first time an immunotherapy involving use
of a virus had been definitively shown to
benefit patients.
We plan to play a big role in creating
the next wave of immunotherapies, by
expanding our research into cancer
immunology. Professor Raj Chopra, Head
of Cancer Therapeutics, will lead a new
focus on revealing how solid tumours
directly and indirectly interact with cells of
the human immune system. Understanding
these interactions may allow us to
manipulate the adaptive immune system
at the molecular level to create new forms
of cancer immunotherapy, including highly
promising cellular therapy approaches as
well as small-molecule drugs. We will also
aim to identify key molecules within the
tissue environment surrounding a tumour
that could be targeted to enhance the
immune response.
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for adults’ and children’s cancers
designed to prevent drug resistance
by targeting key evolutionary
mechanisms such as the ability to
cope with genome instability.
e will apply our understanding
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of cancer’s complex signalling
networks to create new ways of
combining drugs, radiotherapy or
immunotherapy, designed to block
the paths to drug resistance.
e will identify new biomarkers
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to detect or predict response to
treatment, so we can select the
best drug for a patient right from the
outset, and use targeted therapies
earlier in the course of treatment.
e will lead advances in adaptive
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therapy by developing liquid
biopsies and other rapid tests
to assess treatment response
and resistance, and applying
these within innovative new
treatment regimes.
e will study how cancers interact
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with the immune system, and
how these interactions can be
exploited in the creation of new
types of immunotherapy, including
cellular therapy.
We
will target radiotherapy and
therapeutic ultrasound more
precisely at tumours, by solving
physics-related problems and
exploiting advances in imaging and
computational science.
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Innovative approaches
How?
Targets
Dr Udai Banerji
Exploiting stress in
cancer cells
e will build a state-of-the-art
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Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery
with cutting-edge chemistry and
drug design facilities, and room
for an extra 50 members of staff
– so we can discover even more
innovative cancer drugs.
he ICR and The Royal Marsden
T
will expand access to tumour
samples and clinical imaging data
for assessing the effectiveness of
treatments by further integrating
our activities through the Centre for
Molecular Pathology.
e will build capacity in cancer
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immunology and immunotherapy,
by recruiting at least three new
research teams and investing in the
latest technologies.
e will invest across the ICR and
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The Royal Marsden in facilities
for storing and analysing liquid
biopsy samples, so we can assess
drug resistance and create new
approaches to adaptive therapy.
e will integrate the ICR’s drug
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discovery teams with research on
cancer evolution and immunology,
so that researchers can collaborate
to combat cancer’s ability to
adapt, evolve and evade the
immune system.
e will build new commercial and
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academic partnerships to support
our drug discovery, including
attracting companies and research
teams to co-locate to our Sutton site
as part of a major initiative called
The London Cancer Hub.
Cancer cells experience various forms of
stress which create points of vulnerability
that can be exploited by smart new targeted
drugs. The ICR has led research revealing
how cancers use the protein Hsp90 – known
as a ‘molecular chaperone’ for its role in
assembling other proteins – to protect
themselves from stress and preserve
cancer-causing signals. Based on this
research, Professor Paul Workman led
a multidisciplinary team that discovered
the drug luminespib, which blocks the
chaperone function of Hsp90, inhibits cancer
cell growth and shrinks tumours. Dr Udai
Banerji led the first clinical trial of luminespib
that showed the drug effectively inhibits
Hsp90 in cancer patients, and subsequent
studies found it could also shrink tumours in
patients with breast and lung cancer.
But our research also showed that use of
Hsp90 inhibitors can trigger an adaptive
stress response in cancers that limits the
drugs’ effectiveness. ICR scientists are now
designing new approaches to targeting the
stress response that also take into account
how cancer cells evolve during treatment.
They are creating inhibitors of particular
forms of another stress response protein
called Hsp70, which they found to be critical
to blocking the cancer-killing effects of
Hsp90 inhibitors. Our drug designers have
also discovered highly potent and effective
inhibitors of the stress response pathway
controlled by a master regulator switch
known as HSF1. And they are identifying
further ways to exploit stress in cancer cells
as well as to overcome resistance.
To bring forward a new image-guided therapeutic
approach, involving precision radiotherapy or
drug treatment.
To discover seven new cancer drugs over the fiveyear period, aiming to include:
--
two drugs against especially challenging and
novel targets
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one drug targeted against a novel
evolutionary mechanism
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one new immunotherapy.
Pillar 3
Smarter, kinder
treatments
We will move a step closer to
cure by bringing personalised
treatments into the clinic and
developing them for patients.
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Smarter, kinder treatments
Now
‘We need to drive
further innovations
in the design of
clinical trials’
The ICR and The Royal Marsden
together run a world-leading
programme of clinical trials – a mixture
of pioneering, early-phase ‘bench to
bedside’ trials of personalised cancer
treatments, and larger, later-stage trials
designed to change clinical practice.
Together, we have developed a series of
innovative new treatments for patients,
including several in the last few years
alone. We led critical clinical trials of
the prostate cancer drug abiraterone,
which was also discovered at the ICR,
and olaparib, which exploits genetic
principles revealed at the ICR, and has
become the first drug targeted against
an inherited mutation to reach the
market. We have also changed practice
through major trials demonstrating the
effectiveness of precision radiotherapy.
But there remains an urgent need to
develop better treatments for patients.
Some cancers remain very hard to treat,
as do most cancers once they have
begun to spread round the body. And as
we get better at treating cancer, more
patients are living with the disease long
term – and often coping with serious
side-effects from treatment. So we need
more effective personalised therapies
for cancer, with less severe side-effects
than standard treatments.
We need to drive further innovations
in the design of clinical trials, so we
can better develop drugs that target
genetic faults as they arise in a tumour,
and scientifically select and assess
combinations designed to overcome
drug resistance. We also need to
be creative in designing trials to
evaluate biological agents including
immunotherapy, precision radiotherapy,
new surgical techniques and novel
combination treatments. We need to
improve our ability to get treatment
right first time through development of
molecular diagnostics, biomarkers and
adaptive forms of therapy. The focus will
be on taking new discoveries into the
clinic more quickly and more smartly.
To find our more about
clinical trials visit
www.cancerbrc.org
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Smarter, kinder treatments
Future
Professor Johann de Bono
Combining drugs to
improve outcomes
Combination treatment – where drugs or other
therapies are used together – is a promising
approach to cancer treatment. It has worked
well in diseases such as HIV, and has the
potential to cut off cancer’s evolutionary
escape routes and prevent it from becoming
drug resistant. But combination treatments
can have more severe side-effects than drugs
used on their own, and drugs need to be
carefully chosen to be complementary in their
mechanisms of action, or cancers quickly find
ways to evade their effects.
Professor Johann de Bono leads teams of
researchers in combining drugs that inhibit
different targets critical to cancer’s growth
and survival. He and colleagues have, for
example, assessed several paired drug
combinations including the PARP inhibitor
olaparib, and shown remissions in ovarian,
breast and prostate cancers that have defects
in their systems for repairing damage to DNA.
The combination of olaparib with the AKT
inhibitor AZD5363, a drug discovered by
Professor Ian Collins and colleagues at the
ICR in collaboration with two pharmaceutical
companies, has achieved impressive tumour
responses in multiple patients.
Researchers at the ICR and The Royal
Marsden are now developing multiple-drug
combinations that target many of the different
faults present within patients’ tumours, and
that can be adapted during the course of
treatment to overcome drug resistance. They
are scientifically selecting combinations
using computational algorithms, and putting
molecularly targeted drugs together with other
treatments including immunotherapy and
radiotherapy. Innovative clinical trial designs
are helping overcome the challenges of trialling
such combinations in patients.
e will match patients to the
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best targeted treatment using
biomarkers, and carry out innovative
clinical trials of smarter, kinder
personalised therapies.
e will design clinical trials of
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novel treatment schedules aimed
at anticipating and adapting to the
emergence of drug resistance.
e will devise novel clinical trials
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to accelerate the development of
innovative combination treatments,
such as use of targeted drugs
together with immunotherapy
or radiotherapy.
e will enhance precision targeting
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of radiation at tumours using
advanced imaging and biological
markers, to create new, more
effective forms of radiotherapy with
fewer side-effects.
e will bring the advances in
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personalised medicine that we
have seen already in adult cancers
to children through new paediatric
cancer trials.
e will develop new precision
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forms of surgery designed to
be more effective and less
invasive than current treatments,
and aim to reduce postoperative complications.
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Smarter, kinder treatments
How?
Targets
Professor Uwe Oelfke
Tracking tumour
movement in real time
e will create innovative designs for
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clinical trials to assess combination
treatments – including dose
escalation in individual patients, and
new statistical design approaches
for testing hypotheses.
e will develop genetic and imaging
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biomarkers predicting response
to treatment with targeted drugs,
radiotherapy and immunotherapy,
and incorporate these within novel
clinical trial designs.
e will build a national coW
operative group drawn from UK
centres of excellence to lead on
the development, assessment and
clinical implementation of new
radiotherapy technologies.
e will grow our expertise in
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medical physics, and apply this
expertise to the creation of new
forms of precision radiotherapy.
e will play a leading role in a
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major, nationwide matrix trial for
children, in which patients are
directed by genetic testing to one of
a range of targeted therapies.
e will apply use of cancer
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biomarkers to surgery, as a means
of selecting patients for treatment
and judging excision margins
during operations.
The ICR and The Royal Marsden have
made great advances in the development
of precision radiotherapy, which targets
tumours more effectively while reducing
damage to healthy tissue. Intensitymodulated radiotherapy can shape radiation
beams to closely fit the tumour, while
image-guided therapy uses frequent imaging
during a course of radiation to improve the
accuracy of treatment. We have developed
ways of giving radiation in fewer but higher
doses, reducing the number of hospital
appointments for patients and avoiding
serious side-effects.
Professor Uwe Oelfke is now pioneering
new-generation treatments that use
sophisticated imaging to target radiotherapy
at tumours in real time, even as they move
in the body as patients breathe. He has
developed software that tracks tumour
movement to within one hundredth of a
second. The software could be incorporated
into current high-tech forms of radiotherapy
to further improve their accuracy.
But we have even greater ambitions. The
ICR and The Royal Marsden will be the first
organisations in the UK to gain access to the
MR Linac, a state-of-the-art radiotherapy
system, after entering into a pioneering
research collaboration with manufacturer
Elekta. This offers the potential to
combine two advanced technologies:
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a
linear accelerator.
Professor Oelfke and colleagues will use
the MR Linac to develop the next generation
of image-guided radiotherapy by replacing
conventional X-ray-guidance with MRI.
Using MRI’s superior soft-tissue contrast in
real time during treatment has the potential
to revolutionise radiotherapy practice.
To deliver practice-changing clinical trial evidence
of improved survival or quality of life involving
innovative small-molecule drugs, immunotherapy,
precision radiotherapy, surgical techniques or
new combinations.
To demonstrate the benefits for patients of imageguided precision radiotherapy by completing the
first phase of clinical evaluation of the MR Linac –
the world’s most advanced radiotherapy machine.
Pillar 4
Making it count
We will deliver better outcomes
and improved quality of life for
patients by establishing innovative
treatments, diagnostics and
strategies for prevention as part
of routine healthcare.
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Making it count
Now
‘It is essential that
advances in treatment
or prevention are
embedded into
routine healthcare’
It is not enough to make important
discoveries, or even to develop new
treatments. If the ICR and The Royal
Marsden are to have a real impact
on patients’ lives, it is essential
that advances in treatment or
prevention are embedded into routine
healthcare. These advances need to
be implemented in the best possible
way, so the most people benefit with
the least unnecessary treatment and
side‑effects.
We have already successfully driven
many of our research findings into
patient care. The landmark START
trials, for example, changed the
scheduling of radiotherapy for breast
cancer in the UK and worldwide –
allowing patients to benefit from fewer
hospital appointments, and saving
money for the NHS. The MAGIC trial,
led by Professor David Cunningham,
established chemotherapy before and
after surgery as standard of care for
stomach and oesophageal cancer, and
increased cure rates.
In cancer genetics, we have been
instrumental in embedding testing
of cancer genes into mainstream
healthcare, and in establishing how
best to manage patients who are
identified as being at high cancer
risk. And Professor Mitch Dowsett’s
TransATAC study helped usher in a
new era where molecular profiling
is now used routinely on the NHS to
predict outcomes in breast cancer.
Over the next five years, we will put
even greater emphasis on ensuring our
research is made to count for patients.
We will lead moves to establish
treatments as part of routine healthcare
– by studying cost-benefit and driving
adoption through networks. We will
determine who will respond best to
treatment, how to minimise side-effects
and how best to tailor treatment for
older patients. And we will go beyond
an understanding of cancer risk to
assess new strategies for prevention.
Find out more about
patient involvement at
www.cancerbrc.org
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Making it count
Future
Dr Anna Kirby
Reducing the risk
of heart problems
The ICR and The Royal Marsden have
always been committed to easing the
impact of cancer treatment on quality of
life. We have discovered genetic markers
that identify patients with less aggressive
cancers who can avoid harsher treatments.
We have fine-tuned radiotherapy to reduce
the impact on healthy tissue. And we have
launched the first clinical study to examine
the impact of radiotherapy on gut bacteria to
try to ease gut symptoms.
A recent project to reduce side-effects in
breast cancer was so successful it has been
rolled out across the UK. Dr Anna Kirby led
the UK HeartSpare study, asking patients
with localised, left-sided breast cancer to
hold their breath during radiotherapy for
20 seconds to pull the heart away from
the radiation beam. The technique helped
reduce the risk of heart problems later in
life, and has become standard practice on
the NHS. Dr Kirby has since extended the
research to include patients with cancer that
has spread to the lymph nodes.
Studies like this are increasingly important,
because as patients live longer after cancer
treatment, the long-term side-effects of
drugs and radiotherapy are becoming more
apparent. We plan to look more closely at
cancer survivors to assess the long-term
effects of treatments on quality of life. We
will identify biomarkers assessing whether
a drug is likely to be toxic to a particular
patient. We will find ways of predicting in
advance whether different groups of patients
will benefit from a therapy and what sideeffects they will experience – to help guide
personalised healthcare.
e will work collaboratively across
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the UK and internationally to build
evidence of the effectiveness of
new treatments and technologies,
and will lead efforts to embed them
into healthcare.
e will carry out health economic
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assessments to evaluate the
costeffectiveness of new treatments
and technologies, and the overall
cost to the NHS, as a means of
supporting adoption across the UK.
e will reduce the potential harms
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of treatment by assessing long-term
adverse effects, finding ways to
ease side-effects, and developing
better ways of deciding whether
patients will benefit from treatment.
e will take cancer genetics further
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into mainstream healthcare so
that many more patients and their
families can benefit from testing.
e will put our research into
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the genetic, environmental and
behavioural risks of cancer into
practice by evaluating new cancer
prevention programmes – and by
helping others to do so.
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39
Making it count
How?
Targets
Professor Nazneen Rahman
Taking cancer genetics
into the mainstream
e will co-ordinate methodological
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developments in clinical trials to
provide evidence of patient benefit
that can support uptake of new
treatments or technologies by
health systems.
e will collaborate with academic
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partners to produce detailed
economic modelling of cost and
cost‑effectiveness.
e will use biomarkers to predict
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patients’ response to treatment and
side-effects, and analyse long-term
data on adverse effects, to guide
decisions on care and improve
survivorship from cancer.
he Royal Marsden will drive moves
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to develop and spread best practice
in cancer care and diagnose
patients earlier through its lead role
in the Vanguard New Care Models
Programme for reshaping the NHS.
e will develop new care models
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extending access to genetic testing
on the NHS, and assess novel ways
of preventing cancers or detecting
them early in high-risk patients.
e will make our huge reservoir
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of data on cancer genetics and
epidemiology publicly available, so
academics and health organisations
can use it to develop new public
health and prevention programmes.
e will engage extensively with
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patients and their families, to
make sure their voice is heard and
that research is designed to meet
their needs.
The ICR is a world leader in the genetics
and epidemiology of cancer risk. We have
identified many cancer genes, including the
BRCA2 breast cancer gene, and helped to
tease out how genetic, environmental and
lifestyle factors come together to shape
cancer risk.
We believe it is time to increase the impact
of our research by putting more information
about cancer risk into action. We have
already begun to collate information on
genetics and cancer risk to find ways of
stratifying patients. For example, inherited
genetic mutations can now identify the 0.7
per cent of women who have a three-fold
increased risk of breast cancer and the 1 per
cent of men with a six-fold increased risk of
prostate cancer.
The ICR and The Royal Marsden will now
start to put to use our knowledge of cancer
risk to identify people who have inherited
cancer genes, support those individuals
in prevention or active surveillance
programmes, and provide appropriate
counselling for family members.
Professor Nazneen Rahman wants to
increase access to genetic testing, by
making it part of routine care for cancer
patients. Her ambitious Mainstreaming
Cancer Genetics programme is developing
new care pathways and technologies to test
for cancer predisposition genes. The idea
is to widen access to testing by providing
rapid tests at reduced cost. Knowledge of
a person’s genetic make-up can be vitally
helpful when treating cancer, and genetic
tests can provide information about the
cause of the cancer and the best treatments
to use.
To help implement wider use of genetic testing on
the NHS, enabling more effective treatment and
earlier detection or prevention of cancers in highrisk groups.
To bring about the adoption of innovative
approaches to treatment, early diagnosis and
prevention by providing evidence of costeffectiveness, redesigning care pathways and
influencing health services.
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Benefiting a
wider range of
cancer patients
The ICR and The Royal Marsden have
always sought to benefit patients with
many different kinds of cancer. Often
the best way to do this has been to
carry out world-leading research in
particular cancer types – especially
breast cancer and prostate cancer –
and then to find ways of applying our
findings to other forms of cancer too.
These days, what matters most is often
a cancer’s specific molecular profile,
rather than its site of origin, and much
of our research will be relevant across
the field of cancer.
But some cancer types continue to
have much better survival rates than
others. Our research has helped to
deliver dramatic improvements in
treatment and care for breast cancer,
prostate cancer, blood cancers and
children’s cancers – but in other areas,
such as lung cancer and pancreatic
cancer, death rates remain very high.
Our strategy will aim to deliver benefits
for a wider range of cancer patients,
including helping to improve survival
for cancers where outcomes are
particularly poor.
We will continue to build on our
success in those cancer types where
we have been traditionally strong,
working particularly with Breast Cancer
Now on breast cancer, Prostate
Cancer UK and Movember on prostate
cancer, Bloodwise on leukaemia
and lymphoma, and Myeloma UK on
myeloma. We will also create new
areas of strength in cancers of unmet
need, such as lung cancer, pancreatic
cancer, and cancers of the stomach
and oesophagus. We will continue
to do research into children’s cancer
and other rare tumour types too. The
ICR and The Royal Marsden will use a
matrix-like approach to bring together
scientists and clinicians who work in
particular tumour types, and ensure
each type of cancer benefits from
advances in research more broadly.
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43
Foundations
Our strategy is an ambitious attempt to turn
scientific discovery into real benefits for
cancer patients. To achieve our aims, we
need to put down strong foundations in the
way we organise and support our research.
The following section sets out four
foundations to underpin the pillars of our
research strategy: putting in place the people
and skills we need, establishing world-class
digital infrastructure and research facilities,
delivering a culture that promotes talent
and collaboration, and working in close
partnership with other organisations. Each
of these foundations supports every aspect
of our research across the ICR and The
Royal Marsden.
In science, ambition costs money. We will
only deliver on our research priorities by
putting in place significant investment and
organisational support. The ICR's new
organisational strategy will set out how we
will build the foundations outlined here by
generating and allocating the resources
needed to support our science and teaching.
1
2
3
4
People and
skills
Digital and
infrastructure
Culture and
team science
Partnership
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People and
skills
Dr Carmen Rodriguez Gonzalvez
Talented, brilliant, passionate people
lie at the heart of our research strategy.
Our plans are ambitious and wide
ranging – and we will need to recruit
and train the brightest and best
scientists and clinicians to deliver them.
e plan to increase the number
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of researchers working at the ICR,
so we can build on our existing
strengths while also expanding into
promising new areas of research.
We will for example need world-class
cancer immunologists, medicinal
chemists, cancer biologists and
clinical researchers. We will also be
recruiting a new cadre of ‘integrated’
research staff, in areas such as
computational science, bioinformatics
and molecular pathology, to work
across disciplines and be focal points
for multidisciplinary collaboration.
We will not always be able to recruit
people with the right skills – in which
case we will develop them instead.
We will train staff members and PhD
students in the latest technical areas,
and in high-demand disciplines such as
Big Data.
We will expand the overall number
of Faculty at the ICR so we have
the capacity and skills we need to
build on our existing strengths and
move into new areas of research.
We are recruiting a new wave of
senior leaders in scientific and
clinical research to drive forward
our strategy, including specialists
in cancer therapeutics, cancer
biology, evolutionary biology
and paediatrics.
From astrophysics
to a career in
cancer research
We will recruit new specialists in
areas of science where we will
be expanding our work, including
immunology, cell and structural
biology, and molecular pathology.
We will be recruiting or training
new ‘integrated’ research staff
in computational science and
bioinformatics, designed to work
across multiple areas of science,
and with flexible skills so they can
adapt to new technologies.
To defeat cancer we need the very best
minds from across the spectrum of
science. The ICR recruits researchers
from a wide range of disciplines to
drive forward our science – including
people from well outside the traditional
boundaries of medical research.
Using vast amounts of scientific and
clinical data is relatively new in cancer
research – but in astrophysics, the
analysis of big, complex datasets has
been a longstanding challenge.
We will design the ICR’s PhD
programmes with the aim
of equipping scientists with
multidisciplinary research skills,
including in molecular pathology
and bioinformatics.
The ICR and The Royal Marsden
will work together on formal
succession planning for senior
researchers – in particular for
clinical academics, where there
is fierce competition for the
best people.
Dr Carmen Rodriguez Gonzalvez was
previously an astrophysics research
scholar, with a strong background in the
analysis of data. She has now joined
the ICR as a leading data scientist
applying analytical and statistical
techniques developed over decades
by the astrophysics community
to biological challenges. Career
transitions like this can be powerful
catalysts for scientific innovation
and will help us unravel cancer data
to open new avenues for treatment
or prevention.
We will nuture NHS clinicians
who are growing their interest in
research by expanding the pool
of honorary Faculty members at
the ICR.
To find out more about
careers at the ICR visit
www.icr.ac.uk/careers
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47
Digital and
infrastructure
Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani
We are in exciting times for cancer
research, with huge advances in
computing and technology opening
an opportunity for rapid progress in
our understanding of cancer. It is
essential that the ICR and The Royal
Marsden take full advantage of these
new technologies in delivering our
research strategy.
e are now living in an era of Big
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Data, with the ability to collect and
mine huge amounts of information
from the laboratory and from patients,
including genomic information, imaging
and clinical data. We need a step
change across both organisations in
our ability to navigate Big Data, and
store, share, integrate and analyse
it effectively.
he ICR and The Royal Marsden
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also need to invest in other aspects
of our research infrastructure to
support the priorities identified in
our joint strategy. We will enhance
our facilities across a range of areas
including cancer biology, immunology,
genomics and clinical research, and
will introduce more advanced animal
models to study metastasis and
the microenvironment. We will also
create physical spaces that bring
researchers together and encourage
multidisciplinary collaboration.
We are investing substantially in
new digital infrastructure for the
storage, transfer and analysis of
Big Data, and launching a new
Digital Programme to coordinate
investment, and ensure it meets
the needs of scientists.
We are creating a Knowledge
Hub for sharing and analysis of
data across the ICR and The
Royal Marsden, and developing
our advanced CanSAR
database to enhance knowledge
sharing across the wider
research community.
We will harness developments
in e-health, for example through
remote monitoring of patients
and self-reporting of outcomes,
to improve data collection on
clinical trials.
We will use applications for
major grants such as the
Biomedical Research Centre and
Cancer Research UK Centre to
enhance clinical research and
bioinformatics facilities.
The ICR will build a new Centre for
Cancer Drug Discovery to greatly
enhance our capacity and facilities
for drug discovery, and integrate it
with evolutionary biology.
We will conduct a review of
all our research infrastructure
requirements, with the aim
of finding more effective and
efficient ways of delivering
scientific services.
We will create state-of-the-art
scientific facilities to support
our expansion into new areas of
research such as immunology and
the study of genome instability.
Navigating the Big
Data landscape
Scientists and clinicians are generating
data like never before. Thanks to an
explosion in technology, it is now
possible to collect huge amounts of
data in areas such as genomics and
cancer imaging, alongside clinical data
collected from patients throughout
diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.
Navigating this Big Data landscape
is key to understanding the complex
interplay between a patient, a cancer
and its treatment and, consequently, to
delivering better outcomes for patients.
Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani is leading on
an important initiative within the ICR
and The Royal Marsden to develop
The Knowledge Hub as a way of
meeting the Big Data challenge.
The aim is to create a sophisticated
platform for sharing, standardising
and analysing huge amounts of
scientific and clinical data. It will bring
researchers together, and help them
to collaborate on analysis of complex
datasets, as a means of identifying new
approaches to combination or adaptive
cancer treatment.
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49
Culture and
team science
Professor Paul Workman
We want to create the best possible
culture at the ICR and The Royal
Marsden – open, equal and
collaborative. If we are to defeat
cancer, we must make use of all
the talents available to us, and
harness their skills and expertise by
encouraging them to work together in
multidisciplinary teams.
We have been working hard to deliver
an organisational culture where men
and women with a wide variety of
backgrounds and skills can thrive. We
have introduced a range of initiatives
designed to ensure that everyone is
given the same chance to progress to
leadership positions in science, as part
of a more general commitment to equal
opportunity for all.
We are also determined that our
organisational culture should
strongly encourage researchers from
different disciplines to work together
in collaboration. We believe that
many of the biggest challenges in
cancer research will only be met by
adopting a multidisciplinary ‘team
science’ approach, with for example
various types of scientists, clinicians,
mathematicians and computational
experts working closely together. We
need to recognise, incentivise and
reward effective teamwork, so that
scientists and clinicians from different
fields are actively encouraged to
work together.
We will pioneer new ways of
working that maximise the
opportunities for all our scientists,
and particularly women, as part
of our application for an Athena
SWAN Gold Award.
We will ensure all researchers
are given the same opportunity to
flourish and progress through a
strong commitment to equality in
everything we do.
We are developing new leadership
programmes for researchers at all
levels, as a means of distributing
leadership and responsibility
across the organisation.
We will actively promote
collaboration across the ICR,
through a new prize for the best
team science project, and by
exploring the rotation of postdocs
around laboratories to forge
stronger links between teams.
We will link scientists to
multidisciplinary clinical teams
on appointment, as a means of
promoting team working across
the ICR and The Royal Marsden.
We will be open and transparent
in our communication about our
science with the public, and will
seek the views of patients in
shaping our research priorities.
We will learn from other fields
where excellence is achieved
through collaboration, such as the
re-engineering of team working in
Formula 1 and British Cycling. Driving efforts for
multidisciplinary
team science
Much of modern-day science is a team
game, and the ICR and The Royal
Marsden have worked hard to build
strong connections between scientists
and clinicians, and across disciplines.
Together, we have established
structures, cultures and systems that
recognise and promote team science.
It’s this kind of cultural drive that led
to a multidisciplinary team from the
ICR and The Royal Marsden winning
a prestigious global Team Science
Award for its success in taking new
cancer drugs from concept to patients.
It was the first time that the award, from
the American Association for Cancer
Research, had been won outside
the US.
Professor Paul Workman, the ICR’s
Chief Executive and a member of the
winning team, has personally driven
efforts to promote collaboration. He
co-hosted the Horizons in Cancer
Drug Discovery conference, which
gathered together academia, industry,
charities and investors to share ideas
and build relationships. More recently,
Professor Workman launched a Team
Science Competition to reward the best
multidisciplinary collaboration across
the ICR and The Royal Marsden.
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Partnership
Professor Kevin Harrington
Neither the ICR nor The Royal Marsden
can achieve all our ambitions in
isolation. The modern world of cancer
research is underpinned by strong
partnerships between organisations
– sharing knowledge, and pooling
complementary expertise and
resources. The ICR and The Royal
Marsden have worked together in
partnership for more than a century,
and our relationship is a crucial
ingredient in our successes – one that
we will strengthen even further over
the next five years. To deliver on our
ambitious strategy, we will also seek
to build upon our many other existing
partnerships, such as our relationships
with Cancer Research UK, Breast
Cancer Now and the National Institute
for Health Research. We will need
to create fresh partnerships too, in
London, across the UK and globally,
and with a wide range of public and
private bodies. We will need to expand
our range of commercial partnerships
with biotech, pharma, technology
and software companies, as a means
of translating our discoveries into
medical advances.
We will apply for new funding
streams open to research
institutions working in
collaboration with partners,
such as the Cancer Research
UK Centres Network
Accelerator Awards and other
multidisciplinary funding.
A UK partnership
for radiotherapy
We will build partnerships with
academic institutions across
London, including Imperial
College London and the Francis
Crick Institute, as a means of
strengthening our research and
expanding into new areas such
as bioengineering.
Researchers at the ICR and The
Royal Marsden are establishing a new
UK collaboration to accelerate the
assessment, development and clinical
implementation of new radiotherapy
technologies. The network will involve
world-leading researchers and stateof-the-art equipment from centres of
excellence across the UK to ensure
that scientific advances quickly
benefit patients.
The ICR is working with the
London Borough of Sutton, with
the support of The Royal Marsden
and the Greater London Authority,
on a major new initiative to
establish The London Cancer Hub
on our Sutton site.
The Royal Marsden is working
with The Christie NHS
Foundation Trust and University
College London Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust on a national
programme to improve cancer
care, as part of NHS England’s
Vanguard programme.
The Royal Marsden will work
in partnership with patient
representative organisations to
help redesign care pathways
for cancer and ensure research
is focused on patients’ needs
and priorities.
To find out more about our
industry partnerships visit
www.icr.ac.uk/enterprise
Professor Kevin Harrington will lead
the network and will work closely with
colleagues in University College London
Hospitals, Manchester Cancer Research
Centre, The Christie NHS Foundation
Trust, Leeds Cancer Centre and the
University of Oxford. The network will
assess new technologies in phase I
and II trials to provide the rationale for
subsequent phase III evaluations. It
will also develop expertise in medical
physics specifically for new types of
radiotherapy and will help to design
clinical trials to streamline health
technology assessments of new
technologies in specific tumour types.
Research from the network will generate
the evidence base required to guide
investment in these technologies across
the NHS and will help to make policy on
their provision throughout the UK.
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Assessing
progress
The ICR and The Royal Marsden will do
all we can to ensure our strategy delivers
excellent cancer research, faster progress
and real impact on the lives of patients.
We will closely monitor our performance
against the targets set in this strategy
document, so we can make sure we
are meeting our commitments, and can
respond quickly to any challenges as
they emerge.
e will report our progress against the
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strategy on an annual basis, and will
publish a report at the three-year mark,
in 2019, assessing our performance in
each of the four pillars quantitatively
and qualitatively.
We will also make sure that this is
a living strategy document, which
is used as the basis for a rolling
programme of events, discussions
and communications.
At the end of the five-year period,
we would expect to have delivered
concrete progress in understanding
cancer’s complexity, discovering
innovative new treatments,
developing treatments for patients,
and establishing practice-changing
advances in cancer care.
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Working
together
to defeat
cancer
Cancer research is a team effort. The ICR and The Royal
Marsden work together with funders, donors, supporters
and collaborators to make our research happen, and to
take our findings to patients. We would like to take this
opportunity to thank all of our valued partners for their
continuing support, as we put our new research strategy
into action. While we can only highlight some of our
funders and collaborators here, we are indebted to all of
those who work with us to defeat cancer.
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Charitable funders
Funding councils
Academic partners
Trusts and donors
All of our donors and supporters who so generously contribute to our research.
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